Toddlers Don't Drive Cars
by Mewgia Mirrorcoat
Summary: Mrs. Izumi goes into the apartment to grab something, leaving a twoyear old Izzy in the back seat for a few minutes. However, she accidentally leaves the keys in the ignition, and toddler Izzy is curious... COMPLETE


Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, or cars, or any of this really. I don't even know how to drive a stick-shift.

A/N: I was writing a Digimon "I've Never" story (which will hopefully be posted sometime), when I made Izzy comment about driving cars. That's where this came from - and it certainly shows just how curious and knowledgeable Izzy is. It's just meant to be a cute chibi-Izzy story... and hopefully his characterization is okay. It is HARD to write in the point of view of a toddler!

**Toddlers Don't Drive Cars**

"Now Izzy, just wait here for a few minutes. Mama will be back soon, okay?"

"Okay Mama."

With that, Mrs. Izumi closed the door to the car, leaving her adopted, two year old son alone in the car.

The very small, red-headed boy sat patiently for a few moments, watching his mother walk away from the parking lot towards the apartment complex they lived in. He fidgeted for a short moment, not really wanting to sit still in his car-seat and stare at the same old view of the back of the driver's seat for the next few minutes. He knew what most of the car was like, having crawled around it and seen plenty of it from his place, and he was already quite bored with it all. The only place he hadn't been, or seen much of, was the driver's seat.

He'd always wanted to know how his mom and dad turned on the car, and made it start going all over the place. Undoing his seat buckle, Izzy let curiosity take the best of him and carefully crawled over the floor into the driver's seat. He looked around, and immediately decided that the seat he was now in was much more interesting than the back seat.

The first thing he did was try to figure out how to start the car. It couldn't be hard, after all his parents usually did it in moments. Looking around, he remembered that he'd seen his dad turn something right before the car started, once when he was in another seat of the car. As a test, Izzy tried turning all the knobs he could find at the front of the car.

Nothing happened.

Somewhat saddened, but persistent in his search of knowledge, the two year old continued to try to find things to turn, until his small chubby hand found a key sticking out of the side of the wheel. Izzy immediately blinked, and turned it.

First, lights came on in the car. Izzy smiled. That was a start. He knew all of a sudden, that the key was how the car turned on. He turned the key another notch, watching as the lights became brighter. Then all of a sudden, he felt cold air being blown at his face. Izzy looked around, bewildered, wondering how that had happened, but decided that the key was more important. He turned it another notch.

At once, there was a loud noise of the engine revving up, and Izzy laughed in childish delight, knowing the secret to the start of the car. He grinned, sitting on the seat and taking a hold of the steering wheel, moving it around and pretending he was driving. He was a bit surprised at how he couldn't move the wheel at all, but his parents could easily. Maybe it had to do with being a grown-up or something. After all, grown-ups were so much bigger, and could do so many other things that he couldn't do, so it made perfect sense.

However, after a short while, Izzy wasn't content with just starting the car. He wanted to know how it moved, and everything. Yes, grown-ups could do lots of things kids like himself couldn't, but it didn't mean he couldn't learn how they did it. He'd noticed that the car was most definitely not moving, even though it was on and rumbling.

Carefully, the small boy sat and thought. He remembered seeing his mother always pull something before the car began to move. He glanced around the car and began trying to pull things. He knew it was somewhere in between the two front seats...so he looked at the area between the seats.

Izzy pulled a couple of the knobs he'd turned earlier, but they didn't go anywhere. He turned one of them though, and the cool air that had been blowing at him suddenly became a lot stronger. He blinked, then began turning the knob all over the place, finding it extremely interesting how the strength of the air flow changed depending on where the knob was. Soon though, he found that by turning it all the way to the left, it shut off the air.

Satisfied that he knew how that worked, Izzy turned his attention back to finding something to pull. He reached into the headboard and pulled, and found, to his surprise, that a cup-holder unfolded out as he pulled it out. But the car still didn't go.

Sighing, he pushed the cup-holder back in. Then, he looked at the large stick pointing up from the platform in between the two front seats. Narrowing his eyes in determination, Izzy decided that the stick had to be the key to moving the car. Either that, or it did something interesting...

With that, Izzy grabbed a hold of the stick and began to move it around.

The first thing that happened was a slight jolt, which made Izzy jump a little. He looked around, trying to see what had happened, wondering if the car had started up, then pulled himself up and glanced out the window.

He could tell right away. The car was moving forward.

Izzy gave a loud shout of glee, proud of his accomplishment, for he knew the car was moving. He practically jumped in his seat, full of excitement as he felt amazingly grown-up and smart. For a brief moment, he almost wanted to know how to drive the car. There were so many things he wanted to know about, and to know how to do.

Then, before he could celebrate his victory more, the car bumped into the curb, stopping all movement and throwing the small boy forward slightly. Izzy cried out in shock as his head lightly hit the center of steering wheel, causing the horn to honk – not hard, but loud enough to startle the small child. He quickly recovered, sitting back in the seat and looking around wildly. He wasn't sure what had happened, and he wanted to know.

Then he noticed that the car had stopped moving.

Pouting, Izzy crossed his little arms and grumbled. The car had stopped! Cars only did that when you wanted them to! (Which was why his mother always told him to quiet down when she was making the car stop – Izzy thought she had to think or something to make the car stop moving). And he hadn't wanted the car to stop...

Gritting his teeth slightly, Izzy looked around the car some more. He saw the stick, and thinking to himself, thought of something. If the stick thing made the car go before, it could make the car go again. With that thought, Izzy took both hands and clasped them around the stick once more.

He moved it, and suddenly there was a very light jolt. Izzy let go of the stick and looked out the window in expectation. Sure enough, everything outside the car was moving, so the car had to be moving.

But something was wrong. The scenery wasn't going past the car, it instead was moving forward. Izzy blinked for a moment, wondering what was happening as he stared outside. Then he remembered, from seeing outside while his parents were driving, that the scenery outside was moving opposite the direction of forward. He realized it. The car wasn't moving further, it was going the opposite direction – backwards!

Izzy sighed, as he sat back in his chair. At least the car was moving...

Then he made a decision, and thought that the stick was the answer to how the car moved.

He grabbed the stick again, and moved it around. Abruptly, the car stopped. Narrowing his eyes, the small boy moved the stick again. The car lurched forward, again making Izzy fall backwards into the seat. He sat up and stared out the window as the car slowly moved back into its parking spot.

Then it hit something, stopped, and made Izzy fall forward onto the steering wheel again, where it honked slightly louder than it had earlier.

Izzy narrowed his little eyes and pouted again. He didn't enjoy having to fall over and hit the steering wheel or the seat so many times. But he still had to learn how to control the car!

Again, Izzy grappled with the stick and continued to move it around. Soon, he felt a familiar jerk, and the car began moving backwards once again. Sighing, Izzy decided he would wait and find out what happened if the car continued to go backwards. It would stop too, just like when going forward, right?

About then, Izzy heard a loud, high-pitched shriek. He sat up in the chair, looking through the windshield to see where the noise had come from.

The first thing he saw, as the car continued to back out of the parking spot and slowly towards the other end of the parking lot, was his mother, face white and eyes wide with fear and shock as she ran forward shrieking and yelling something unintelligible. Izzy blinked, and seeing the expression on his mother's face made him cringe.

Somehow, he had a feeling that she wasn't very happy at the moment.

Izzy then realized that even with his curiosity, he hadn't managed to find out how to stop the car. It usually just stopped on its own, from what he had discovered so far, and as his mother was trying to chase the backing car, he actually wanted it to stop this time. Of course, he didn't know how, so he helplessly sat in the seat as the car continued to reverse across the parking lot.

Bump!

Izzy fell backwards into the chair, once again pouting as he rubbed his little head. He glumly sat in the seat, waiting sullenly as his mother came forward to where the car had stopped, across the parking lot at the opposite curb.

Mrs. Izumi quickly pulled open the car door and grabbed little Izzy out of it. "Izzy! What were you thinking, oh dear..." she moaned as she held Izzy up and hugged the small boy.

Izzy looked up at her with big, black eyes. He blinked, not knowing why his mother was so concerned. "Why?" he asked simply.

Mrs. Izumi seemed to interpret the word in two ways. She sighed, as she slowly reached one hand into the car to find the ignition key. "Izzy, I understand that you were curious and just wanted to know how the car worked and how to drive it, right?"

Izzy nodded, even though he couldn't understand every single word in the sentence.

Mrs. Izumi found the key, and turned it, effectively shutting off the power to the car. Izzy sulked slightly when he heard the engine turn off. All of his hard work gone...

"Well, it's all right to be curious Izzy, but cars can be dangerous. That's why only grown-ups drive them," Mrs. Izumi explained to her son.

Izzy put his head down. He wanted to drive the car, but he understood slightly as to why no small child drove a car.

At that point, Mrs. Izumi smiled. "You certainly have a knack with machines though," she commented, glancing at the car. Then she hugged Izzy again, patting his little red head. "Don't worry Izzy, when you're in between being a big kid and a grown-up, you'll learn how to drive a car okay?"

Izzy nodded and returned the hug, grinning to himself. "Okay," he answered, feeling both proud of himself for managing to work the car, and anticipation for the day he would learn how to actually drive it. He had simply been curious, and now he wanted to learn even more.

He would gain knowledge of everything someday, he hoped, not just the skill of car driving.


End file.
